Life lived once is enough if done properly.

“Ya, saya setuju.” (More or less “Yes, I do.”) Part 1

The long awaited blog post. (Not really since I’ve been married a grand total of FIVE days. Not that I’m counting.)

Anyways, for the benefit of my non Malay/Muslim readers, I’m going to give a breakdown of what happens when Malay people get married.

(Sans the whole Karaoke. One of my Chinese friends actually asked me the significance of the karaoke. My answer: To make noise. Granted, on my side of the family we don’t really do much of karaoke (except for the occasional cousins’ outing). For my wedding, one of my cousins actually know of a company who provide songs with no karaoke. More on that later)

The traditional way is for the bride to have malam berinai which translated to Henna Night. No, as you can imagine, I did not have strippers having their way with me. It was nothing wild. It was just a close family gathering plus a few close friends.

The one in light denim shirt (Nadya) was the one who did my henna for me and let me say this once and for all. Why do bridal henna cost A WHOLE LOT MORE than regular henna?

It’s cause they (or rather Nadya) spent close to THREE HOURS doing it. Yes, my friends. Three hours. And thank goodness she wanted to start at 4pm (usually it’s done at night. You know henna NIGHT?) If we had start at about seven plus, there’s no way other people would have their turns!

Mine was done in my room. After mine was done, my uncles and aunts came in and said that they want to beautify the room. So off we went to the hall, they then proceed to have a mini make over of my room.

Special thanks to Pak Long, Mak Long, Cik Nani and Teh for helping with the flower arrangements. Mami, special thansk for doing the gubahan and arranging for the stuff on bed. It honestly blew my mind at how beautiful the decor is! I somehow had never imagined getting married and here I am today with people helping me prepare for my big day. :’)

It is by Marni’s Bridal and yes it is lovely which means it came a rather high price (but not as much as a wedding gown by the Chinese bridal comapanies.)

I have to admit, I had one of those Say Yes To The Dress moment whereby the moment I saw it, it took my breath away. When we went to Marni for the appointment, we gave her our trust. We told her the colours that we wanted, the materials and details. She had the task of finding the required materials and all that and of course she didn’t disappoint!

I loved it soooo much that I wanted to wear this as my western wedding gown! Of course, Mak was against it. Saying how I want to embarrass by wearing the same thing over and over again! (During my parents/aunts times, it was normal to wear and change up to 12 times even!)

The idea of me wanting to wear the same things twice was of course unthinkable! I mean what was I thinking right?! *flips tudung*

The whole night people asked me how I was feeling/ how do I prep myself etc

I’d answer with this

“Maira practise kata “Saya setuju”

“I practised saying “I do”

Which translates into Mak’s anger once again.

You see for the wedding to be legit, the tok kadi or the person who officiates the wedding would say the terms and conditions for the wedding (kinda like a pre-nuptial agreement. One of the agreements is as follows: If Mr Hub-hub, or his family, fails to give me sustenance (be it monetary wise or shelter wise or even food wise) for four consecutive months, be it deliberately or not, we’d be divorced in like the first stage. And you think Muslims don’t have pre-nups)

The reason why I’m practicing for this is because I’ve seen brides who didn’t know they had to say that till the very last minute and their voice came out as literally a squeak! And if it’s going to be recorded, I’m making sure my voice doesn’t sound like that. Heh.

Anyways. I think by night time, I started having the jitters. I couldn’t sit still. I die die wanted to go down to the multi purpose hall to see my wedding dais.

How long did it take me to go down? A full 30 minutes.

Every single time I was ready to go out, there’d be someone asking me to do something. It somehow helped that my aunt was saying that usually brides don’t leave the home to look at the dais! And everytime i passed her, she’d reiterate the fact I’m getting called back into the house everytime I wanna leave is because brides cannot leave the house! Somehow 30 minutes later, I finally met my way to the void deck, I bumped into Li.

Who then asked for my help to bring nenek down as one of my uncles was going to send her home.

Of course I then went back up to fetch nenek and finally got to see the wedding dais.

Of which it wasn’t even set up yet -.-“

The next morning, Li and I went down to check out the whole decor…

Honestly, the dais looked so much better than the picture then provided me with

I’m really happy with the dais. I think there’s something wrong with my iPhone the pictures are upside down.